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Saturday, January 11, 2014

AROD KO'ED! SELIG'S PLOT QUESTIONED. YANKS NOW SPEND!

Everyone is reporting this, but we'll go with Bob Nightengale of USA Today who writes:

"Alex Rodriguez will be suspended for the entire 2014 season, as an
independent arbitrator upheld the majority of a 211-game suspension
Major League Baseball assessed him in August.

The Saturday ruling
by Fredric Horowitz will cost Rodriguez $25 million in salary, and cast
considerable doubt over the All-Star's career. Rodriguez will turn 40
during the 2015 season."

And we'll continue with the Newsday who clarifies that the 211 suspension was reduced to 162 games writing that ARod was:

"...suspended for 162 games by arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, who trimmed the
ban from the 211 games imposed last August by Major League Baseball
after Rodriguez was implicated in the Biogenesis probe of
performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez responded by saying he will take
the case to federal court."

Alex had a statement, and in fairness, here is a portion:

"The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been
stacked against me from Day One... This
is one man's decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial
jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds
with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug
Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents
that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States
because they are false and wholly unreliable. This injustice is MLB's
first step toward abolishing guaranteed contracts in the 2016 bargaining
round, instituting lifetime bans for single violations of drug policy,
and further insulating its corrupt investigative program from any
variety defense by accused players, or any variety of objective review.... I have been clear that I did not use
performance-enhancing substances as alleged in the notice of
discipline, or violate the Basic Agreement or the Joint Drug Agreement
in any manner, and in order to prove it I will take this fight to
federal court. I am confident that when a Federal Judge reviews the
entirety of the record, the hearsay testimony of a criminal whose own
records demonstrate that he dealt drugs to minors, and the lack of
credible evidence put forth by MLB, that the judge will find that the
panel blatantly disregarded the law and facts, and will overturn the
suspension. No player should have to go through what I have been dealing
with... "

Now let's be fair. I have no idea what ARod has done or didn't do. I can tell you that I believe, and this is my opinion, that Bud Selig has decided that his legacy will be the "Commissioner that cleaned up baseball" and I believe that in Selig's mind, if he could just "suspend the guy who's most hated in the game", and it would be easy. In the end, in Selig's mind, he'd look like a star. He didn't realize that ARod would be pissed about it and didn't realize that people would see right through his plan.

Furthermore, I am of the belief that while the idea of performance enhancing drugs has always been in clubhouses for decades, when baseball was literally dying in 1994 and no fans were coming to the park after the strike, the idea of "big" home runs from suddenly "bigger" players was OK to Selig, as long as the fans paid to see it, hence filling the pockets of Major League Baseball. In other words, it's my opinion that Selig was part of the problem then, not part of the solution now. Read BUD SELIG'S PLAN IS NOW COMPLETE... I GUESS, from October.

In the end, ARod will fight this. He'll demand he should be at Spring Training and will most likely just show up. He wants the mic, he wants to tell the fans he didn't do anything and this is a witchhunt. I'm convinced of that. Alex will fight this. He will fight as Alex calls it "one man's decision" until he decides to continue playing, or hangs it up. Either way, Alex will not go away.

The Yankees on the other hand will now spend. They will most likely sign Stephen Drew today. They will most likely throw a crap load of money at Masahiro Tanaka, and who knows what's next. The Yankees funds are now secure... and you hate to root against a player on your own team... but trust me... they were rooting, whether you believe it or not.

There will be more about ARod through the weekend and through to spring training... watch it and read it here on BYB...

it's not over ladies and gentleman.

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